Inside the Times

Published: October 11, 2011

Foreign

POLAND'S MOVE TOWARD

A MORE SECULAR SOCIETY

Poland's recent parliamentary election revealed how a country long pigeonholed as deeply conservative and devoutly Roman Catholic drifted away from the church to seek a secular state more in step with Western Europe. No party better encapsulates those changes than the Palikot Movement, whose founder, a philosophy student turned entrepreneur turned politician, has ignored a tradition of tiptoeing around the church. Page A4

DEFENSE MINISTER STAYS

Britain's minister of defense, Liam Fox, appeared to have won at least a temporary stay in office after a public apology for misjudgments in his personal relationship with a man who has traveled widely with him on his overseas trips. But in the reckoning of many of Britain's political commentators, there was a strong possibility that the prime minister would nevertheless demand Mr. Fox's resignation. Page A4

STUDYING RADIATION'S EFFECTS

In an effort to track the long-term health effects of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan has begun a survey of local children for thyroid abnormalities, a problem associated with exposure to radiation. Japanese officials hope to study about 360,000 children who were under 18 at the time of the accident and track their health through their lifetimes. Page A7

DIPLOMA FRAUD IN IRAQ

Many people seeking jobs in Iraq's reformulated government were able to exploit the fact that public documents had been destroyed after the fall of the Hussein government. Without adequate records about who had graduated from which school, many Iraqis pressed school officials to sign documents that said they had graduated from schools that they had never even attended. Meanwhile, the post-Hussein government began to fill with unqualified employees. Page A10

MAJOR PRIZE FOR EX-LEADER

Pedro de Verona Rodrigues Pires, the former president of Cape Verde, the desertlike archipelago about 300 miles off the coast of West Africa, won one of the world's major prizes, the $5 million Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. Page A10

National

GULF SHRIMP ARE SCARCE,

AS ARE THE ANSWERS

White shrimp season began in late August, and two months in, the shrimpers in Louisiana say it is a bad one, if not the worst in memory. If the reports of a dismal season prove true, any forensic work is complicated by the oddities of this year's weather, with a severe drought interrupted by spring flooding on the Mississippi River that brought millions of gallons of fresh water into the marshes. Page A15

ALL BETS ARE OFF IN IOWA

Measured by media attention, national polling and millions in the bank, the Republican field appears to have come down to a bout between two heavyweights: Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, vs. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. But in Iowa, where the first nominating votes will actually be counted, the field resembles more of an all-out brawl. Page A16

EXPLAINING PROSTATE ADVICE

In the wake of a government panel's advice that men should no longer be routinely screened for prostate cancer, an independent team of experts sought to explain in an assessment of the scientific evidence in a prominent medial journal why a simple blood test generally does more harm than good. Page A17

WARNING ON ARMY CUTS

The Army's two top leaders, John M. McHugh, the Army secretary, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the new chief of staff, argued against shrinking their service too much, warning that the nation might have to rethink its defense strategy if the ground forces become too small. Page A17

New York

EXONERATED OF MURDER,

TAKING HIS SHOT IN THE RING

After 26 years in a New York prison and two years after he was exonerated of murder, Dewey Bozella, 52, will make his professional boxing debut. Winning his other fight, seeking compensation for the half of his life he spent behind bars, may be even more elusive than victory in the ring. But for now Mr. Bozella is focused on what he says will be his one and only professional bout. Page A19

Business

WALL STREET BANKS HELP

HEDGE FUNDS RECRUIT

Wall Street banks often boast that they hire the best and the brightest. Now, scrambling to bolster profits, Wall Street banks have become full-time headhunters for some of their biggest hedge fund clients, a role rife with potential conflicts. In an effort to secure lucrative brokerage and trading business, the banks scout finance executives, accountants and receptionists free. Page B1

COURTING MONEY IN REACTORS

Japanese industrial conglomerates, with the cooperation of the government in Tokyo, are renewing their pursuit of multibillion-dollar nuclear projects, particularly in smaller energy-hungry countries like Vietnam and Turkey. The effort comes despite criticism within Japan by environment groups and opposition politicians. Page B1

CALLING FOR MURDOCH'S OUSTER

A major investor advisory firm recommended that shareholders of the News Corporation vote against the re-election of a vast majority of the media conglomerate's board, including Rupert Murdoch and his sons, who control the company. The firm wrote in a report that the News Corporation's incumbent directors failed to prevent the company from stumbling into a morass of corporate troubles. Page B2

Sports

SOCCER TEAM PLAYS ON

DESPITE SLIM SHOT AT VICTORY

San Marino is Europe's smallest recognized soccer nation, and official victories in the tiny, mountaintop republic are only slightly more common than traffic lights, of which there are none. All but three members of the team are students, clerks or fitness instructors, and all play for gas money and train about three days a week, often at 9 p.m., after their day jobs. Page B12

Obituaries

ROBERT SCHAEBERLE, 88

He led Nabisco through two mergers but retired as chairman and chief executive in 1986 as the company moved toward one of the biggest and most contentious leveraged buyouts in Wall Street history. Page B17

Science

SEEKING STUDENT TESTS

FOR SPACE STATION

YouTube and Lenovo, the computer manufacturer, announced a science contest called SpaceLab for students around the world ages 14 to 18, and it is not quite like any other science contest. For one, the students, who can enter individually or in teams of up to three, do not actually have to perform any experiments. Instead, they will make videos to pitch ideas for experiments that could be conducted in the zero-gravity environs of the space station. Page D3